Star Fox: Fleet Corsair
by XxSanitariumxX
Summary: Ivan Wickerman has become the newest pawn of a looming war between the humans and Cornerians. He is labeled expendable and replaceable, but he has more importance than even he himself could possibly guess.
1. First Drop

The blue world lay before him, so beautiful and tranquil with its large blue oceans and numerous continents. Many argue it is not as beautiful as Earth, but Mar Sara held a special place in the man's heart as his lifelong home. It looked like it was so close that he could reach out and touch it. He felt cold being so close but far, a problem he was about to rectify.

The man took two steps back and then four forward before leaping out of the open bay doors into the black void. He looked to his left and right and saw others following in his steps, everyone leaping out of the massive training ship to their supposed deaths. This was the last test, and he only had himself and his training to get himself through it.

He positioned himself flat like a plank before activating the propulsion pack on his back, and rocketed towards the planet. He started off slow but boosted himself up to Mach two once his Hell-bound class thruster pack had warmed up. He gazed at the planet slowly getting even bigger, but he couldn't focus on the beautiful planet for long however, as a warning began to signal him to take evasive action. Quickly he banked right, dodging a large destroyer class human ship, only to be careening towards a horde of them. He and the others found themselves in a simulated warzone in which the goal was to avoid any and all objects and get to the planet safely.

The final test required only the survival of the partaker, once he or she made it through alive, without crashing into anything, they had graduated. After two months of flying in a simulator the man felt strangely calm about avoiding simulated destroyers and fighter class ships. There was nothing that would stop him from getting home; nothing would stop him from being a Fleet Corsair.

Quickly he banked left, dodging the next destroyer and he increased his speed. He got deeper and deeper into the swarm of ships until they all opened fire. Suddenly the game grew even more dangerous and he had to be wary of streams of laser fire and rockets screaming all around him towards the enemy fleet. The destroyers and dreadnaughts he was seeing in his helmet's HUD began to clear up and a new web of sleek silver and blue ships blocked his path. He began to cross a large gap between the human and Cornerian fleet when the Cornerians started returning fire.

"Shit!" The man cried out and began dodging left, right and rolling to get out of the way of the enemy fleet's attacks. Despite the flurry of death flying past him, he did not lower his speed; he had to get home and the faster the better. He mainly relied on his HUD to keep him one step ahead of the dangers and on the path set out for him. It was a dangerous game, one miscalculation and his life saving dodge would send him straight into the center of a laser.

Finally he penetrated the enemy fleet's lines and began dodging them all, his home getting larger and larger until all the backdrop was only the beautiful world. The fighters were the hardest to dodge but he was too small and moving too fast for them to notice him so he didn't have to worry about them attacking him, just hitting him.

"Two minutes until breach of atmosphere." The robotic voice of the Andromeda's AI told him.

'_Here comes the dangerous part.'_ He thought to himself as he flipped upside down.

The man reached behind himself and grabbed a little latch and pulled it, causing a the extra fuel tank needed for achieving Mach speeds of the deep space thruster to detach rendering it a simple jet pack. He quickly pulled up from his headfirst dive and spread his body out to slow himself. Things started to get a little warm and that was his cue to activate the shielding device at his hip that drew power from his jetpack.

"Switching priorities. Thermal shielding engaged." The voice reported seconds before the man broke atmosphere and flames started erupting all around him.

'_That wasn't so bad.' _ The man thought before the deceleration hit him and nearly knocked the color out of his vision. _'Never mind.'_

As he broke all the way through the stratosphere and entered the inner atmospheres, the flames began to die down and he could finally see where he would be landing and luckily it wasn't in the ocean like his division comanders said it was.

'_Almost there. Almost home.'_ He thought as the world began to become more detailed by the second. His moment came and he disengaged the shielding and reverted all power and remaining fuel to the weakened jet pack. He moved his body around so that he was falling feet first to the ground and started firing his jet pack off in short bursts. His blood chilling speed began to slow, allowing him to relax and take in the environment and all its barren wastes the central continent had to offer.

"Three hundred feet from ground level. Please slow your rate of descent." The AI notified him.

'_I'm still going too fast!'_ The man thought as he desperately shot off another short burst that his jetpack could muster now that it was relying on the lower grade of fuel in its tanks.

"Fifty feet from ground level." The AI reported just eight seconds later.

"God damn it, GO!" He shouted and made his jetpack give its all.

"Thirty… twenty… ten… five…." The AI said before the man slammed into the ground.

For a while he laid on the ground, his legs hurt and so did most of his body but nothing was broken as his vital register in the top of his HUD red green. He kept laying on the sandy desert floor, enjoying the nearly scorching heat after enduring the freezing cold of space for the last two hours. However, he knew that he had to get up, he wasn't dead after all. Finally the realization of finally being home after six months of Hell finally hit him.

His hands reached up to his helmet and tore it off his head so he could breathe fresh, un-recycled air. With his first breath, he let out a loud howl of return and triumph. All around him was a flat open wasteland of sand and rocks echoed his cry but after six months of being stuck on a ship, he couldn't have cared less where he was. It was ground, and it was glorious. Weeks of training, weeks of practice, and weeks of suffering all led up to this. He was a changed man, a better man, a stronger man. Everything he needed to be in order to defend his home from the aliens that threatened it was given to him.

He was not just a common soldier; he was a full blooded Fleet Corsair.

The sound of an engine roaring towards him woke him from his elation. He turned around and saw a jeep shaped vehicle driving towards him and stopped just thirty feet away. A woman in a dress white uniform and a combination cover stepped out of the driver's seat prompting a fast salute from the man in his airtight armor.

"Airman Recruit Wickerman, reporting for duty ma'am." He announced as he received a salute in return.

"Wickerman…" She replied, sounding slightly put off as if she wasn't expecting to see him. "Drop your salute."

He followed her command and stood motionless as the sun baked him inside his black and slightly burned combat suit. She walked up to him and stared up into his sparkling green eyes. If there was anyone he wanted to give him his unofficial inauguration it was her. For the last two months she had seen to it that his life was absolute Hell. She and his RDC's drove him and the rest of his division into the ground, nearly killing some of them from dehydration because they were sweating more than their bodies could absorb the gallons of water they consumed daily.

Lieutenant Octavia Lynn was by far one of the meanest and scariest people he had met in his entire life. She was only about five foot five, making him seven inches taller than her, but she could scream louder than a gunshot in the ear. She inspired fear in every man and woman in division zero six seven, even brought many to tears in front of everyone.

She was the hardest on him though, and he could not remember why for the life of him. From day one her crosshairs set right on the point between his eyes. It was like she wanted to turn him into a puddle of human despair on the floor. Yet as hard as she tried, she failed in destroying him and here he was, on Mar Sara, receiving his special aviation warfare pin from her.

"Airman recruit Wickerman Ivan, for outstanding performance, successful completion of your combat training on the destroyer Arcadia and your first orbital drop, I hereby present the title of Fleet Corsair." She said and handed him a golden pin with two crossed rapiers on top of a spread F4U Corsair from the twentieth century. "Congratulations."

A loud chorus of screams of jetpacks brought their attention to the sky as the rest of the division broke atmosphere and they came closer and closer to landfall. In just a just few moments there were dozens of recruits falling to the ground slower and more gracefully than Ivan had. Even from so high up they could hear the shouting and cheering of the Corsairs coming in for a landing.

"You were the first one to touch down, you know that?" She asked. "You even beat the record by ten minutes."

"Ma'am?" Ivan asked looking to her like she was lying to him.

"One hour, four minutes and thirty two seconds." She told him which, if he wasn't so full of energy and adrenaline, his knees would have given out in response.

The Fleet Corsairs had been around for sixty four years, and the record had stood for sixty. He had no intentions or desires to break the record, he just wanted to see the light of day and get off of the Andromeda training ship.

"I see." Ivan gapped as he watched his division slowly coming down. He wondered how many of them made it. After spending two whole months with them, he came to honestly care about a few of them, tolerate the majority, and hate the rest. He hoped all the shit bags were burning up in atmosphere and everyone else passed, but that was left to be seen.

"If you want a ride back to base Wickerman, I suggest you get in. Otherwise it's a twenty mile trip of hoofing it out in the desert." She growled and revved up the engine. Ivan quickly ran over to the passenger seat, and before he could get both feet in the jeep the LT started driving. If he wasn't holding on he'd have fallen out but he barely managed.

They had been driving for five minutes towards the next pickup until the silence was broken.

"You did… good, Wickerman." She admitted despite the nasty taste in her mouth because of it.

A bead of sweat dripped down the man's neck as he thought he was going to be shot and dumped in a ditch somewhere. When she didn't go for the gun at her hip, he replied.

"Thank you, ma'am."

"I'm not surprised you made it this far, let alone broke the record." She went on and slammed on the brakes so not to hit the recruit dancing around. "You gave it your all every minute of every day, you're by far one of the best recruits I've had the privilege to train. However, if you tell anyone I said that, I swear to God I'll kill you."

"Roger that ma'am." Ivan shuddered as a painful cold like that of the vacuum of space was cast at him through the olive skinned woman's brown eyes.

'_Man, if she wasn't such a ball busting dominatrix, she'd almost be human.'_

~X~X~X~X~X~X~

"We had quite the success this time around. Of the one hundred and sixty four recruits who partook in the mission, ninety percent of them passed the orbital drop. Surprisingly, there weren't any casualties this time around" A man with two stars on each side of his khaki uniform collar reported. "Only four didn't make it due to pilot error. Also, the sixty year old record was finally broken."

"Interesting." A man with deeply tanned skin and hazel eyes said as he poured himself a drink. "Looks like division six seven and six eight was worth the investments after all. What about Wickerman? How did he do?"

"He was the one that broke atmosphere first. Seems he really wanted to get off the Andromeda." The Admiral chuckled.

"That's too bad."

"Mr. Chancellor?"

"Admiral, now that the training ship is being repurposed as a support ship, I want him stationed on the Andromeda in team Skyfall. If he proves himself then he will be the one to recover McCloud on Corneria." The Chancellor explained while sipping his drink.

The Admiral shook his head. "Mr. Chancellor, with all do respect, shouldn't we send enhanced personnel, or at the very least augmentees?"

"I'm afraid that's not possible. They refused to have any enhanced humans do it, and that only normal men and women would be allowed on their ships, no exceptions. They'll be inspected upon arrival and the grey eyes, white hair, and metallic body parts are all dead giveaways." The middle aged man explained.

"Very well, but why team Skyfall? They're the best of the best-" The Admiral went on but was interrupted.

"And he broke the best record. Surely, Admiral Gates, that warrants him a shot to serve with the best of the Corsairs?" The Director chuckled while still leaving Gates with a bad feeling in his gut.

"Yes Mr. Chancellor, I just don't agree with sending a greenhorn to the finest Corsairs in the Navy. If they don't eat him alive, he'll crack under pressure in days. He's never been in actual combat, only simulations, he might get someone important killed." Gates argued.

"Trust me Gates." The Chancellor said as he brought up several hologram projections of Ivan Wickerman in combat simulations. Each one was more proficient then the last as his combat skills were honed through the two months of training onboard the Andromeda. "I have a feeling about this one."

Admiral Gates frowned. "The same feeling you had about McCloud's boy, Fox, sir?"

The Chancellor grinned. "The very same."

_**~X~X~X~X~X~X~**_

_**AUTHOR'S NOTES~~~ Hey everybody, this is what you voted for! Thank you to everyone for voting, I hope you'll enjoy this little side series. Like I said before, this takes place in the Exchange Student fanfiction universe but unlike the Un-Canon Chronicles, it's all canon. This won't be a long series, I was thinking like eight or so chapters and it might take longer for it to get updated since the ends of both this and ES are set to intertwine. Now, it is not necessary to read this story but it will make things a bit smoother in the end. Anyways, hope you enjoyed!**_


	2. You Volunteered for This

Ivan tapped his finger on his stomach in perfect synchronization with seconds of a clock. He'd been at it for almost an hour as most everybody was up and about talking despite the fact that if the RDC's or, god forbid, Lieutenant Lynn walked in they'd beat them until they couldn't do a push up for weeks because their bodies were too sore from relentless working out. Tonight's topic that everyone was talking about today and how awesome it was, they were also talking about how Wickerman broke the record that had stood strong for sixty years.

Like most every night, the division would prattle on for a good hour and half and then fall silent which would allow him to finally get some sleep. As much as they wanted him to join them, he honestly had no desire to. For the first time in six months, he was standing on solid ground and not the metal flooring of a cold space ship. All he wanted to do was be let free, even for just a few hours, and finally get to see his fiancé again.

Just the thought of her got his blood pumping and his body tense with frustration. Being stuck around almost ninety guys for so long, and one overly cruel sadistic mistress left him with a lot of pent up… feelings. His fiancé sent him a few pictures of herself despite him telling her she didn't have to, and it wasn't enough. He needed to feel, smell, hear, and taste her.

Just a few months ago they were inseparable, but then their home was leveled by a once unknown threat. He volunteered for the service despite her begging him not to just a few days after. When he got to basic training he caught the attention of a group of Corsairs that had come to watch and laugh at the people who hadn't prepared for the physical demands of boot camp. When he kept pushing himself, refusing to give up and rest, they pulled him away from his shrieking instructors to ask him a few questions….

"What's your name, Recruit?" The Chief asked.

Ivan was doing his best to remain at attention and not wipe the sweat away that was pouring into his eyes making them sting. His entire body was trembling because it was so tired which made it hard to stand.

"Airman Recruit Wickerman, Chief."

The Chief rolled his eyes. "Relax, Recruit. I'm not an instructor so you can take it easy around us."

Ivan was a bit hesitant to relax as he believed that this was just a trap and then the Chief and the four petty officers would jump him. Still, he shifted out of attention and slumped his posture a little bit which felt absolutely amazing. He never realized it before joining the Navy, but slouching, putting his hands in his pockets, and being able to sit down whenever he wanted to were more precious than any television show, video game, or computer ever was.

A first class next to the Chief sniggered as beads of sweat streamed down Ivan's forehead and neck. "You look pretty exhausted, how long you been at it?"

Ivan looked over at the clock on the other side of the pool, its hands were hardly even visible but he could see them clear as day.

"About an hour now, petty officer." Ivan admitted through his heavy panting.

The Chief raised an eyebrow before squinting at the clock. To him and the others, the hands weren't visible enough to tell what time it was. The recruit was right though, he had been doing pushups, burpees, and mountain climbers for an hour according to the Chief's watch.

"Did you just read that clock, Recruit?" The Chief asked pointing at the clock almost forty feet away.

"Yes, Chief." Ivan replied, barely able to keep himself from bracing his body up on his knees.

"What time does it say right now?"

Ivan looked back at the clock, didn't even squint, and said. "Thirteen hundred, forty two hours, and eleven seconds, Chief."

The Chief looked at his watch as Ivan told him the time, and sure enough he was right. He looked to his lead petty officer (LPO) and nodded.

"Alright Recruit, come with us."

Ivan followed without hesitation. They walked around the Olympic sized pool, where the rest of his division were proving that they indeed could swim, to a small gym with weights and a pull up bar.

"How many do you think you could have done before you got beat, Recruit?" The LPO asked the exhausted recruit.

Ivan shook his head, still breathing hard. "Twenty-five, Petty Officer."

"Twenty-five pull-ups!?" A second class scoffed. "Kid, half the people who come to basic training can't even do one pull-up. And you can do thirty?"

At that moment, something got loose inside of Ivan that he didn't mean to let out. He wasn't sure if it was the weeks of physical and psychological battering, the feeling of being a prisoner, the Chief telling him he could relax around them, or maybe it was the chlorine water still trapped in his left ear. Either way, he snapped back.

"I can go farther than any of those idiots dog paddling in the pool! I'm not here for a job, I'm here to fight!" Ivan growled which would have gotten every drill instructor within half a mile radius to come crashing down on him to give him tinnitus.

"If you want to fight, why aren't you in the Marines?" The second class asked, seemingly unfazed by getting lashed back at by a recruit.

Ivan looked away and bit his tongue. "I don't want to be a Marine, I want to be a… a Fleet Corsair."

Everyone Ivan had told this had laughed at him before now, his fiancé, his parents, even his dog seemed to bark in a laughing way, but not the men and woman in front of him. They looked at him like he was serious, like he wasn't clawing for attention. They believed him.

"Then why are you here in a regular division, and not in a Spec Ops division?" The Chief asked.

"Chief, when I signed up all the Special Ops positions were full for the next six months. I didn't want to wait that long and my recruiter said that if I graduated basic and applied at my next command I'd have to wait only a total of four months." Ivan explained.

The Chief rolled his eyes. "You do know your recruiter lied his or her ass off right?"

Ivan blinked. "… I do now, Chief."

"Bastard probably wanted to meet his quota for the month. What job did you get, Wickerman?" The second class asked using his last name for once.

Once again, Ivan hesitated. "Undesignated."

"Jesus Christ!" The LPO said and started laughing. "Why not ask to be the guy who cleans out the septic tanks of a carrier? At least there you'll catch less shit!"

"So not only were you lied to, but you also got one of the worst jobs in the Navy?" The Chief said aloud, sounding completely serious. The chief nodded to himself before stepping out of the way of the pull-up bars. "Wickerman, do you still want to be a Corsair?

"More than anything, Chief." Ivan affirmed, his hazel eyes sparking with determination.

"Very well. Give me ten pull-ups, and I will personally see to it that you get transferred to the Spec Ops division."

Ivan's jaw nearly dropped off its hinges. He could hardly believe his ears and almost didn't want to believe the Chief because the offer was too good to be true. However, even if he wasn't being lied to, he doubted he could lift himself up even once. As he looked up at the eight foot bar, he started to lose faith that he could do it. He'd just worked his arms half to death and now he wanted more from them?

'_I won't get another shot at this, not for a long time at least.'_ Ivan thought as he stepped up to the pull-bar. His arms struggled to even lift above his head. Ivan growled in his throat and jumped up at the bar, latching on to it and dangled for a second.

"Well come on killer, just ten pull-ups and you're on your way to be a Corsair!" The second class mocked as Ivan couldn't even move up an inch.

The young man grunted, groaned and kicked angrily, trying desperately to move his arms. He was so loud that he started drawing the attention of everyone around the pool.

"GAH! GOD DAMN IT!" Ivan shouted at the top of his lungs as he started tapping into his anger and frustration that had been festering ever since he got to boot camp. He mustered every ounce of his hate and pushed through his mental barriers, allowing himself to lift his body up high enough to get his chin over the bar.

"Well, well, well. That's one Wickerman, just nine more to go." The second class told the hanging recruit.

'_Aw fuck! I can't feel them anymore!'_ Ivan shouted in his mind. _'Come on, come ON!'_

"AH! FUCK!" Wickerman shouted, keeping the momentum he had gained.

"Two…" Ivan panted before pulling himself up again. "Three… four… f-five!"

'_Oh my god… oh my god!'_ Ivan cried in his mind but refused to show weakness. His arms were killing him and he could almost feel his muscles ripping apart. The wall was so close to him that it was hard not to crawl up it with his legs, but he knew that would disqualify him instantly.

"Aw no, that's not it is it?" The LPO asked when Ivan didn't even try to lift himself up.

"Clock's ticking Wickerman." Chief said looking at his watch.

Ivan's arms twitched and he went up an inch but not any further. He moaned and tried again before trying again. He kept trying as hard as he could but his body was unable or just unwilling to give anymore. His grip failed and came down to holding himself up by his fingers.

'_Halfway there… just halfway there! Five more, I only need five more.'_ Ivan pleaded to his body, begging for the strength that he needed to get through this. There was no desire to quit or give up, his body wanted to but he was completely mindset to accomplish this goal.

Taking everything his body had to offer, Ivan moved himself up on sheer willpower, not caring that his arms begged to give up. He gave it his all and soon the numbers grew from five to six, to seven, to eight, to nine, and finally to his goal. On his final pull-up he seemed to move in slow motion, muscles flexing and contracting to get his chin over the bar. His eyes made it over the bar but he stopped, unable to give any more no matter how hard he looked for some reserve of strength.

'_Fuck! Just another two inches, come on! COME ON! PLEASE!'_ Ivan shouted at himself, barely holding on and keeping himself from sinking back down.

Even though he begged for just one more favor, his body began to sink, millimeter by millimeter. Fearing that he would fail, Ivan thrashed and flailed about, trying to reclaim his lost ground. With no other choice left, Ivan jutted his chin up and over the bar. He was only over the bar for a second when all at once his arms died. He lost all feeling and so he fell back and slammed into the floor, gasping for air that his muscles craved.

Only his eyes were able to move and he looked up at the silent Chief, wondering if that last pull-up even counted. A bead of sweat crept down his skin, but not from physical exhaustion. The chief didn't say a word, he and his petty officers simply walked off.

Not caring that his RDC's would shout up a storm at him if they saw him lying down, Ivan just laid there trying to recuperate. It might have only been for three minutes, but every second was like an hour to him. Just as he started to get feeling back in his upper body, he heard shouting.

"GET UP YOU LAZY SACK OF SHIT! Nap time's over!"

Ivan blinked and found the chief from before standing over him. Not wanting to get yelled at anymore, Ivan quickly jumped up to his feet using his core and legs to get off the ground. He stood at attention but was barked at for doing so.

"I didn't tell you to do that, did I? If you want to live to see graduation day, then from now on you will do what I and your new RDC's tell you, and only what we tell you, DO YOU UNDERSTAND!?"

"YES, CHIEF!" Ivan sounded off and thus began his life as a Corsair.

~X~X~X~X~X~X~

About an hour and a half had gone by and the division had finally gone to sleep allowing Ivan to start drifting off as well. His heart was still beating above normal as the massive surge of adrenaline from the orbital drop was still in his system. Still, he hadn't slept in two days and his eyes were longing for sleep.

The new Corsair's hazel eyes had only been closed for a few moments until he felt something cover his lips. His eyes snapped open and his hands reached to grab the thing covering his lips but then he saw who it was. All at once he stopped moving and resisting so that she could do whatever she needed to do.

The woman of Chinese descent moved a finger to her lips while giving him one of the angriest loos he'd seen her give. Once she had his attention, Lt. Lynn silently ordered him with hand motions to get out of bed, which he obeyed without a word of question.

Without explanation, Ivan followed Lynn out of the compartment, not even stopping to grab shoes. From the compartment they went to the quarterdeck which Ivan was extremely underdressed for, but he wasn't too worried about that. Instead, his mind was swirling with possible reasons, explanations, and motives as to why he was being led away from the division as quietly as a mouse.

'_Where is she taking me? Am I in trouble? Think… what did I do, what did I do!? I don't remember doing anything wrong that I can remember and I- oh God! What if she's taking me around back to shoot me because she showed me that she can be nice!? _

As more outrageous ideas ran through his head, the two finally came to a stop.

"Pick up your bag." The Lieutenant barked pointing at the full, green Sea-bag sitting all alone in the middle of the quarterdeck of the barracks.

There was a pair of sneakers next to it that he quickly put them on before shouldering his new Sea-bag. As the bag bared down on his shoulders, he noticed that it weighed way more than a normal one.

"Come on, outside." Lynn ordered and led the young man out of the barracks into the freezing cold of the midnight desert.

Wearing only shorts and a T-shirt, Ivan instantly began shivering in the near freezing weather.

'_Well this fucking sucks.'_ Ivan thought, his teeth chattering as he attempted to follow up behind his superior.

As they walked deeper into the darkness, Ivan's eyes darted to the woman's backside and lingered there. There was no way he'd cheat on his fiancé, especially with the Devil's handmaiden of torture, but the fact of the matter was he'd been trapped in a room with overflowing testosterone and not a trace of a woman except for the hard-ass walking ahead of him.

'_God she's got a nice ass. Not as good as Roxanne's but, damn.'_ Ivan thought until his mind resumed being loyal to his fiancé. _'Roxanne! What about her!? I'm supposed to get to see her after I graduate!'_

Normally Ivan would not have dared to speak out of turn, but his fears and obedience that was drilled into him by boot camp vanished. He was woken up in the middle of the night, led out of his compartment away from his division into the night, and not given a single answer or reason why.

"Ma'am, what's going on?" Ivan asked just as the sound of an engine reached his ears.

"Quiet." She said surprising the recruit who had been expecting a tongue lashing for talking. Because of this lack of disciplinary action, Ivan spoke up again.

"Ma'am, why are we-"

Lt. Lynn stopped dead in her tracks and spun around facing the much taller recruit. It seemed that the loud yelling and verbal abuse was about to rain down on him, but she surprised him again.

"I can't tell you anything on Mar Sara. My orders are to bring you back to the Andromeda for debrief, and these orders come up from past the top." She said with a hundred percent less fire in her voice than Ivan had come to expect from her. In fact, she sounded almost… scared.

"But Ma'am, I'm supposed to graduate tomorrow!" Ivan protested as a heart stopping fear took hold of his heart. "My fiancé is going to be there, I haven't seen her in months!"

For a split second a look of sympathy and compassion was visible on the woman's face. Only for an instant. It then solidified and hardened into a stone-faced expression.

"I'm sorry, Wickerman… but when you signed up for the Navy, you became its property. You have your orders, and they are to follow me back to the Andromeda for debriefing."

It seemed that all at once his whole world fell apart. Everything he'd worked for, strained for, cried for, and nearly died for had suddenly been spat on. For the past six months he'd worked his body to the breaking point trying to become one of the Navy's most elite combat operatives. He understood that he'd be called upon, but he'd worked so hard and he needed a break, he needed to see his wife to be. The Navy promised him that he'd have eight hours with his family or spouse when he graduated before receiving orders, and the Navy broke it.

'_This isn't fair! I want to see my fiancé.'_ Ivan moped nearly on the verge of tears.

A bus became visible that Lynn stepped in while Ivan hesitated. For a moment he contemplated disobeying; rebelling against the unfairness he was being subjugated to. They couldn't do this to him! He wasn't a tool to be used and abused in any way that the Navy deemed. He was a person, he had worth and he shouldn't be treated like this. There was a choice to be made, either he would keep his mouth shut and obey orders like a good mindless drone, or he would draw a line in the sand and stick up for himself and his rights.

'_I could refuse; put my bag down, sit down and refuse to move!'_ Ivan thought to himself. _'I worked my fucking ass off for six months and they're going to screw me over like this? This is fucking ridiculous! I'm not a robot, I'm a person! A Fleet Corsair… I'm… I…' _Ivan thought as the feeling of rebellion inside him slowly started to die. _'I'm a Fleet Corsair…'_

The more Ivan thought about revolting against his chain of command, the stupider he felt. He wasn't tricked or even forced into volunteering for this, he knowingly and willingly volunteered to be a tool of the Navy. Yes it wasn't fair, but he agreed to this whether he knew something like this would happen or not.

Like all recruits before and after him, he took an oath and swore to abide by the Navy's Creed. To support and defend the Constitution of the Earthen Directorate and Her Colonies, to obey the orders of those appointed over him, to defend freedom and democracy, and to serve with Honor, Courage and Commitment.

If that meant sacrificing the eight hour reunion with his fiancé then so be it.

So with a sunken heart, Ivan stepped onto the bus. He walked past the driver and sat across from his superior just before the bus started driving away, taking him further and further away from the love of his life and brining him closer and closer to his new life aboard the EDHC Andromeda.

_**~X~X~X~X~X~X~**_

_**AUTHOR'S NOTES~~~ Okay everybody, I just want to say I hope you enjoyed this chapter and your continued support is deeply appreciated. Also, I wanted to clarify a few things, from here on out there is going to be a lot of military lingo, customs, regulations, and other things that may or may not be confusing. I'm going to try my best to make it as easy as possible to understand but at the same time not lose its value. Also, there are going to be many much a lot of anagrams and abbreviations, the military just LOVES them. One more thing, this Navy of the EDHC (see? It's already begun) is the reincarnation of the USN, any and all events in this story are fictional, and none of them are associated with the USN. Like always, this is just a fanfiction.**_


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